Book Review: Young Woman and the Sea

Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World by Glenn Stout


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was amazing. Interesting history, woman's lib, robbed childhoods, this book has it all. Did you know that Trudy Ederle invented the bikini 20 years before French engineer Louis Réard did it in 1946? She actually swam the Channel in one because she found that it had less drag than any other suits she tried.

Also, did you know that Native Americans invented the crawl, or freestyle stroke? For years the breaststroke or sidestroke was thought to be superior to any other swim stroke until the Americans showed up at the Olympics and blew everyone out of the water. But this book talks about how it was discovered by an artist and displayed to the world at the world's fair (If I'm remembering correctly)

And while all that is awesome and interesting, this book is about Trudy. A New York native of German descent who fell in love with the water on the Jersey shore. About the struggle of women to be treated as equals. About this history of swimming. About the fear of water. About the geological makeup of the Channel itself. About the rights of athletes. This book honestly is so amazing and will suck you in within the first few pages. I'm not kidding. If that story about the fire in the ship off Long Island doesn't get you, I don't know what will.

I really want some of you read this so we can talk about it! You will not believe what happens at the Olympics in 1924. And you will NOT believe what happened the first time she tried to swim the channel. But ultimately this is a story about one woman's triumph and how she succeeded when everyone tried to tell her to get out of the water. LITERALLY. Oh, not only did she succeed, she SMASHED the record. A woman. An American Woman. Oh, and did I mention she was 19? Yeah, she was a teenager.

This is the Seabiscuit of 2009. I'll go on record as stating that right now. Makes me happy to be a swimmer. And by the way, it's ok to be chubby if you are a channel swimmer. Maybe I should look into it?

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